LIFE IMPRISONMENT 13
WRITTEN BY: GRACE OLAYEMI
“Your father’s kidneys have been badly damaged due to excessive consumption of alcohol and that is why waste products have built up in his body which had bloated him. He needs a surgery immediately to remove the damaged kidneys and replace it with a new one. He might die from further complications if the surgery is not done immediately,” the doctor said and Comfort sighed.
“How difficult is it to get a donor?”
“It is not difficult. Once you pay the money we can get the kidney in less than 24hours.”
“Ok,” she said and walked out of the doctor’s office. She walked through the corridor until she got to the front of a door and stopped abruptly. She opened the door and stared at the man lying helplessly on the bed with tubes connected to various part of his body. He was looking black, bloated and unkempt and she couldn’t stop the tears that escaped from her eyes. Her father really looked pitiable and it would take a person without human feeling to see him and not pity him.
She closed the door gently and walked to the reception where she brought out her phone from her handbag and dialed Ranti’s number.
“Hey, Big Bro!” She said immediately he answered the call.
“What’s up, my pumpkin accountant or accountant pumpkin?” Ranti said from the other end of the line and she could not help the laughter that broke out on her lips. Her brother is the sweetest man she had ever known in her life and she knew that whatever she achieved in life she owed it to his selfless sacrifice for her and Edward.
Her mind swiftly went back to all Ranti did for them when their mother abandoned them and their father was busy drinking his life away. How Ranti would go to the market to labour before they could eat and even got to the point where he dropped out of school and focused on his business. Though she didn’t know the type of business he was doing, she knew he was working hard to give them a good life.
She remembered how he took them away from their father’s house to a nice duplex in an estate and that was how they lost contact with their father. He furnished the house like the buildings they do see in movies and she was surprised that he could get that kind of money.
“Big Bro, what kind of business are you doing?” She would ask him on several occasions but Ranti would always tell her things like
“You can’t understand.”
“When you are old enough I’ll explain to you in details.”
Ranti would leave the house sometimes for weeks before returning and he would make sure they had enough money to spend while he was away.
She finished secondary school and Ranti insisted that she should further her education even though she wanted to join Ranti in his business. But he said it was enough that he dropped out of school to do business and that none of his siblings would struggle the way he did. Comfort was touched and made up her mind to make her brother proud by facing her studies squarely.
She did very well in JAMB and was able to gain admission into a Federal University to study Accounting. Ranti and even Edward were very happy and they graciously graced her matriculation ceremony. She had spent three years in the university and she had never for once missed any of her parents. Ranti had been all in all for her.
“Baby Girl, talk to me,” Ranti’s voice brought her back from memory lane and she swallowed hard as she didn’t know how to tell him that their father who abandoned them years ago was in need of surgery.
“I’m at the teaching hospital,” she started but could not continue as the line went dead.
Ranti immediately dropped the call and ran out of the house; he didn’t even wait to hear anything else from Comfort. Ever since her incidence of appendicitis while they were kids, Ranti had always taken special care of Comfort’s health and he would make sure that she ate healthy food. He had always nagged her about eating junks since she got into the university but she would not listen to him. He honked angrily at drivers on the road as he drove at top speed to the teaching hospital.
He rushed into the hospital after parking his car at the parking lot. He was about making enquiry about a patient named Comfort when he saw her seated at the extreme corner to the left of the reception. He walked up to her and checked her body briskly to see if she was hurt any where while bombarding her with questions.
“I’m fine. There is nothing wrong with me,” Comfort tried to rescue herself from her brother’s grip.
“It’s someone else that is sick,” she said.
“Edward! What happened to Edward?” Ranti screamed and tears invaded his eyes.
“Would you just calm down? You get yourself all worked up over us, forgetting that we are no longer kids.” Comfort scolded him.
“I’m calm, okay? Just tell me what you are doing at the hospital.” He said stomping his feet impatiently.
“I came here with some of my colleagues at the NGO I volunteer with. We had to visit patients at the hospital and give them some things especially the ones that have been abandoned there or that don’t have any relatives around,” she explained and Ranti listened quietly waiting for her to tell him the reason she had to give him a distress call. Her phone rang and she answered almost immediately…
“Yes, the teaching hospital. Just walk inside the reception and look to your left, you will see me there with Big Bro. Okay, see you soon,” she ended the call and Ranti knew she was speaking to Edward.
If it was not Edward that was hospitalized, then it might be one of her friends since they didn’t have any other family member, Ranti thought and his nerve loosened a bit. He was not a bad person but he was relieved that neither of his siblings were hospitalized.
“Continue your story, madam,” he said looking at Comfort.
“Let’s wait for Edward so I’ll tell you guys together.”
“Is it someone we know?”
“Yes!”
“Okay.”
They sat together in silence as Ranti racked his brain for the identity of the person that was hospitalized. His mind could not think of anyone that they all knew and he just let his mind wander off on other things until Edward showed up.
He had grown into a fine young man with well-built biceps that made him look like an athlete. He was calm and collected as he approached his siblings and gave a courtesy bow while exchanging pleasantries.
Comfort had immediately placed a call through to him when she sighted their father in one of the wards at the hospital. She could not believe that after over ten years of not being in contact with their father she was going to meet him on a hospital bed fighting for his life. She fought tears as she asked the doctor for details about his condition. The doctor was surprised to see her as there had not been any one to visit him since he was brought to the hospital few months back. They were contemplating turning him into a specimen before Comfort showed up.
“So, who is in this hospital that we know?” Ranti said impatiently and Comfort sighed. That was typical of her impatient brother. She asked them to follow her as she didn’t know how best to inform them that their long lost father was fighting for his life in that hospital.
They walked through various corridors leading to different sections of the hospital until they got to the ICU where Mr Adel lied helplessly on the bed. They all stood inside his ward and Ranti immediately recognized him even though he looked like a shadow of his former self. Ranti could never forget the face of the man that neglected his duties and made them suffer when they were younger. The man that did not show them any love nor care and cared not whether they died or lived. He looked at the tube connected to his heart and then to the machine and he sighed.
“Karma sure is a real deal,” he thought to himself and walked out.
Edward just stared on like he had seen a ghost. He didn’t know how he felt inside. He had been angry at their father for all he did to them while they were kids and had wished he would never set his eyes on him again. Seeing him that day brought shades of emotions as he had never thought he would meet him in an in-between life and death situation. He followed Ranti and wished Mr Adel all the best as he knew only Ranti as his father.
“Wait! Wait!” Comforts cried after her brothers but neither of them stopped till they got to where Ranti packed his car.
“I’m so disappointed at you. You mean you called me because of this useless man,” Ranti said angrily.
“He is still our father,” Comfort answered.
“He is not my father. My father died when I was fifteen and since then I have not had a father and I definitely don’t need a father any more,” Ranti said and opened his car and got in, his siblings also entered the car.
“Please, I know he has hurt us greatly and if we are to judge him on the basis of what he did, then our anger now is justified. But, to err is human and to forgive is divine. He needs our forgiveness now. With what the doctor told me, he has suffered a lot because of what he did to us and he had been abandoned in this hospital for long.”
“That is none of my business.”
“Big Bro, Edward, he has kidney failure and the doctor said he needs surgery ASAP, if not he would breathe his last. He needs surgery and there is no one to pay for it except us.”
“That still does not change anything. I would rather help a stray cat than spend a dime on that useless man.”
Edward’s heart sank when he heard that his father would die if they don’t assist in paying for the surgery. He looked at his brother and wished that he would temper justice with mercy at least for the the fact that he was a father to them at a point when he still had a job.
“You don’t mean that?” Comfort asked bewildered.
“I mean every word I say. I’m disappointed at you greatly, Comfort. If Edward here is the one talking like this, I won’t blame him much since he was so young then and might not really understand what happened. But you, that got sick to the point of death and that man, the one you call your father didn’t do anything. I know what I got my hands into to source for money for your surgery and even when you returned to the house after the surgery this man did not say a word about your sickness. We left the house and got our own place and not even once did this man look for us and you sit there telling me rubbish about saving his life. I don’t care if he dies and rot in hell.” He turned on the ignition and set the car in motion.
Comfort knew and remembered all their father did to them then, but she believed they survived for a day like that, so they could prove to him that they could make headway in life with or without a father.
She remained quiet all through the drive and knew that all Ranti needed was a little time to cool down before he can forgive their father. She looked over at Edward who was quiet and she wondered what was going through his mind since he had not said anything since they left their father and she knew him to be a talkative.
To be continued…
